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The Fallacy 

of the 

Wide- Open Town 



WILLIAM R. SCOTT 






KY of CONGRESS] 

i wo Gooies BeceiVocf ' 

S? With! Entry 



j CLASS A 'XXb„ No. 



COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
WILLIAM R. SGOTT 



B. J. Billing-s, Paducah, Ky. 



The Fallacy of the 

Wide-Open Town 



If a committee of representative business men, 
convinced that an increase in population would be 
the greatest thing for Paducah's industrial welfare, 
should appear before the general council and ask 
that an ordinance be passed legalizing immorality 
as the best means to accomplish that end, what 
would be the general; idea about their action ? 

Suppose their arguments in favor of such an 
ordinance ran like this: Where there is the greatest 
immorality, there is the greatest number of child- 
births; hence, to take the quickest step to increase 
Paducah's population, an ordinance legalizing im- 
morality would be sane and efficient. 

No one denies that an increase in population 
would be desirable. But is there doubt in any per- 
son's mind as to what answer would be made by the 
council, or the answer that would swell from almost 
every throat? 

" You are fools, your ideas of industrial economy 
are false, and your morals are utterly unbalanced." 
would be the decisive rebuff to such a committee. 

But their argument, that immorality by increas 
ing child-birth, would increase the population, has 
not been answered. To dismiss a person with the 
declaration that he is unbalanced, does not in any 
sense answer his attitude. 

The first effect of general immorality would be 
an increase in population. Childbirths would b<s 



more frequent. But the whole operation of such an 
idea would be what 1 At one time in Paris, it is esti- 
mated that every third birth was illegal. That is 
immorality on a scale greater than any modern na- 
tion has known and scarcely better than the nations 
of antiquity. Did Tans 7 population increase rapidly 
under this general immorality 6 / On the contrary, 
population decreased rapidly. 

The city was kept in a vital condition only 
through the influx of fresh blood from the rural dis- 
tricts. Studied at close range, it is seen that where 
illegal births are frequent, the hardihood of the race 
deteriorates rapidly. The children so born are 
weaklings, they are more susceptible to disease, they 
are less capable of surviving in the struggle for ex- 
istence. Hence, the death rate is greater in an im- 
moral race because immorality brings about a de- 
terioration in the physique, which makes epidemics 
more violent and reduces the vitality of the popula- 
tion to the point where they are killed oft' in the 
process we call survival of the fittest. 

It is evident then, that to stimulate general im- 
morality in Paducah would result in the birth of 
children incapable of surviving and the final effect 
would be that instead of an increase in population, 
there would be a sharp decrease. 

This committee of representative business men 
might have believed sincerely, the idea they pre- 
sented. What would their attitude, which heart and 
reason show is false, be termed? The idea would be 
said to be fallacious. An idea which on its face ap- 
pears reasonable, but when analyzed is false, is fal- 
lacious. 

This booklet is an attempt to show that the 

-2- 



whisky business is fallacious. Since the most prom- 
inent argument brought in favor of this business ia 
that it helps the city industrially, in other words, 
"makes the town," this booklet is an attempt to 
show that, analyzed, their chief argument is fallac- 
ious. If it can demonstrate this, the whisky busi- 
ness will sink to the same level as the idea just an- 
alyzed. 



-a~ 



Public Policy 



Statesmanship of the highest order, is that which 
keeps the vitality of the people fresh and strong, 
by constantly agitating the common principles of 
morality. 

Honesty and morality are essential both in the 
individual and the nation or community, to the 
highest degree of productivity of wealth. For where 
these are lacking, the operation of the individual is 
not to produce wealth, but to transfer wealth al- 
ready accumulated, from other members of society, 
to himself, without giving anything in return. It 
is on this principle that gambling is condemned; 
the burglar is a non-producing citizen from the same 
reason; and those members of society who live by 
catering to the weaknesses in humanity, by encour- 
aging those weaknesses and supplying the facilities 
for their satisfaction, are, in addition to being, non- 
productive of wealth, the greatest force at work in 
the community towards destroying wealth. This is 
true, both because the immediate effect of their op- 
erations is to consume without producing wealth, 
and because they go to the vitals of society by tearing 
down the real producers of wealth. 

Farmers know that there is no method of caus- 
ing nature to yield in a greater proportion than they 
sow. Because nature does operate on such exact 
principles of honesty, farmers are the most moral 
and honest members of society, as a class. The dis- 
honest man in business does not grow wealthy by 
producing wealth* but by stealing it from others, 
whether, this stealing is direct, or is the result of a 



manipulation of conditions; or of taking advantage 
of the ignorance of others; or of selling products to 
society that are not worth the prices paid for them. 
-Every time an adition is made to the dishonest mem- 
bers of society, a non-producer is created, and so- 
ciety has another idle member to support. 
• ; "So that 'all the efforts made to increase morality 
and self-control in the citizenship of a community, 
pay dividends' in less law-breaking 'and in .less 
wealth-wasting; Wealth is wasted only when it is 
spent in : satisfying principles of evil that may be 
awakened in humanity. Humanity destroys wealth 
when ' it spends wealth on base passions which it 
allows to run' riot; and this destruction of wealth 
increases at a compound rate because the dissipated 
consumption of wealth tears/down the physique .of 
the consumers, rendering them less able to' produce. 
Sobriety, of conduct in the life of the individual 
citizen causes him to get ahead in wealth; society 
operates on the same principle, only on a larger 
scale." If the individual is the best producer of 
wealth "when he conducts himself according to the 
principles of morality, then real statesmanship would 
dictate, that the community should conduct itself 
along the same lines as the best means to conserve 
and produce wealth. For a city to license saloons, 
is simply dissipation on the scale of a whole com- 
munity.: to permit gambling, or bawdy houses, is for 
the whole city to dissipate as well as. the 'individual 
citizen. . "Whenever a community permits any ac- 
knowledged evil to go on unchecked, or worse still, 
license it in its operations, the destruction of wealth 
will .be. as. much greater than it is .in the individual 
life, as the city is greater than the individual: :.:;/. \ 



Statesmanship of the lowest order, is that which 
encourages habits of dissipation in a people. This 
is done in licensing those lines of business that cater 
to the weaknesses in humanity, for the sake of rev- 
enue. But the palpable disadvantages of those busi- 
nesses more than outweigh the advantage of reve- 
nue, so that when statesmen tolerate them, 
the real reason is not for revenue, or 
public gain, but for reasons of graft and private 
gain. Wealth, it has been shown, not only is de- 
stroyed under immoral conditions, but the produc- 
ing power of a community decreases under the de- 
teriorating influence of dissipation; hence, whenever 
any person advises the permission of any business 
that caters to a weakness in humanity, he is advis- 
ing the line of policy most calculated to destroy the 
wealth of a community. 

EXPLOITING HUMANITY. 

No man has the right, and society cannot give 
him the privilege, to engage in the business of ex- 
ploiting the weaknesses in humanity for financial or 
any other kind of remuneration, to himself. States- 
manship recognizee this principle in some of its acts, 
as, for instance, in not licensing the bawdy house. 
No man would be licensed to exploit this weakness 
in humanity, by stimuating immorality and supply- 
ing the facilities for its satisfaction. Society also 
will not license the gambler, recognizing the de- 
structive operation of his business; and all this in 
the face of the fact that both go on tacitly all over 
the country. Those evils may always exist, but so- 
ciety recognizes them as such, and has declared 
eternal war against them by never formally recog- 
nizing tfcem, 



Society brings in a serious indictment against 
its intelligence and indeed its sincerity, in following 
such principles in those cases; for there are other 
cases where society does not condemn the exploita- 
tion of human weaknesses. 

At no single point can the whisky business, 
which society licenses, be destinguished in principle, 
from the business of the bawdy house or the business 
of the gambler,: which society does not. license. All 
cater to acknowledged weaknesses in humanity for 
financial remuneration to themselves; all prosper 
greatest when society is at the lowest state of morals. 
Each flourishes most when the others flourish. 

The consumption of intoxicants has long been a 
practice in- society, but no longer than any of the 
three exploiting businesses mentioned so that its 
age as a custom cannot be used to prove that the 
whisky business is legitimate. The opium trade in 
China is old and looked at from this distance is 
universally asknowledged to be destructive of wealth 
because of the deteriorating effect it has on its con- 
sumers: yet, the opium business is not different in 
principle from the whisky business. "We cannot 
point the finger at China for tolerating this busi- 
ness, this exploitation of a weakness of its people, 
until America takes its official recognition away . 
from the whisky business. And the recent action of 
Chinese "statesmanship in seeking to lessen . this 
traffic in a weakness' of the people of that nation, is 
an evidence of enlightenment that our own halls of 
Congress cannot duplicate. 

There is a weakness in humanity to use intoxi- 
cants, which simply are pqisons in liquid form, to 
excess, and statesmanship in -thfe country, ignoring 

~7- 



that fact, licenses some of the members of society 
to exploit this weakness. For that reason, the so- 
ciety that refuses to license the bawdy house or the 
gambler, and as a matter of fact, refuses to license 
the opium business, reverses itself when it licenses 
the whisky business. 

It hardly seems necessary to argue that the 
whisky business exploits a weakness in humanity. 
It can be supposed that the men who profit by the 
opium business in China, would assert that their 
business is legitimate; but a look at the effect 'of 
either of these businesses in a community, is self- 
evident proof that they do cater to evil principles. 
A business is not justified simply because it supplies 
a product that society wants and will buy. It may 
be that society wants that product to satisfy awak- 
ened principles of evil. But think for a moment on 
the larger operations of the whisky business. 

Some of the highest American business intelli- 
gence is engaged in the whisky business. This means 
that superb mental endowments are being constantly 
used to devise ways to increase the consumption of 
their product. Society has licensed them to make 
as much money as they can at their business and 
they are going about it vigorously. The more dis- 
sipation in the use of their product, they can en- 
courage, the greater their remuneration, hence these 
great intellects are working to get society as dis- 
sipated as possible. If this does not constitute the 
exploitation of a weakness in humanity, what does? 

Despite the fact that the whisky business ex- 
ploits a weakness in humanity, its directors are ad- 
mitted into full membership in the commercial 
brotherhood. Should the bawdy houses organize 

-8- 



Sand apply for membership in the Commercial Club 
on the grounds that their business circulates money 
and keeps the town alive, would they be recognized! 
Wealth is no less surely destroyed by the whisky 
business, and the physique and morals of the com- 
munity are scarcely less damaged by it, yet society 
discriminates and allows the whisky business on a 
plane of respectability. 

INDUSTRIAL FALLACY EXPLODED. 

What made a Louisville commercial body in 
1007 ask that the racing season be limited from sixty 
to fifteen days? The same arguments — that the races 
brought people to the city wiio spent money, and 
that they made money already in the city, circulate 
—were used in defense of the^ races that the whisky 
men use in defense of their business. It was be- 
cause Louisville business man realized that they did 
r.o such thing. The act of looking at a horse race 
is not immoral and the recreative benefit is valuable ; 
but the gambling that invariably accompanies rac- 
ing is so destructive of wealth, from some persons 
getting something for which they give nothing, that 
Louisville business intelligence saw the fallacy and 
denounced it. The same principle that condemns 
the gambling of the race track, condemns the whisky 
business, for it, too, is a business in which some per- 
sons get something for which they give nothing of 
real value. 

Of the indirect evils resulting from licensing 
the whisky business, immorality and crime are the 
most conspicuous; for both of these will be infinitely 
greater under the regime of the licensed saloon. 
Statesmen who tolerate the licensed whisky business 

-9- 



must be held accountable for all the evil results of 
it. If they really would like to see crime decrease, 
and immorality less wanton, why do they not advo- 
cate the abolition of this prime cause of both ? What 
is their idea of statesmanship ? 

A growing class of American citizens believes 
that true statesmanship consists in discouraging im- 
morality and dishonesty of every kind. Those who 
believe that intoxicants are an evil and therefore 
demand that society withdraw its sanction from it, 
are following this principle. The right and wrong 
in the argument is found in the general principle, 
that no man has the right to exploit the weak- 
nesses of his fellowmen; and a minute examination 
into the economic operations of the whisky business, 
following, will show that the industrial effects of 
the business are bad, as would logically follow a 
moral condemnation. 

Taxation always is a hard problem for states- 
men. For that reason history shows that they have 
followed the course of least resistance and have de- 
rived revenue by licensing certain members of so- 
ciety to engage in the business of supplying the 
facilities for satisfying evil appetites in humanity. 
People wil much more readily pay taxes on luxuries 
than on necessities. And they have never objected 
to the tax that must be paid on those things, the use 
of which satisfies a vice. The whisky business 
affords corrupt statesmen an opportunity for revenue 
that has done more to keep the public blind to its 
destructive operation, than any other argument, 
specious though it may be, that has been advanced 
in favor of the business. This in the face of the fact 
that it costs society more to handle the evils of the 

-10- 



business, than any; possible revenue that could be 
derived from it. The public is awakening to this 
fact. Whisky men may search the world for a single 
community that has not been benefited by prohibi- 
tion. On the other hand, the fallacy of the business, 
industrially, is demonstrated in dry communities in 
a way that spells the ultimate doom of the business 
everywhere that American business intelligence has 
the manhood to acknowledge the truth. 

SOCIAL ATTITUDE TOWABD EVIL, 

Prohibition naturally does not operate with ab- 
solute success. But do the prohibitory laws against 
immorality, or against gambling or against any kind 
of dissipation, work absolutely I Where is the states- 
man who would advocate the licensing of the bawdy 
house because immorality cannot be stopped? Un- 
ci er prohibition of the whisky business, there will be 
law-breaking. Yet however great this law-breaking, 
society has made a distinct advance in moral per- 
ception when its attitude toward the business is the 
same as toward the bawdy house. The same number 
of blind tigers in a community never will be as bad 
as the same number of open saloons. Society must 
set a standard of manhood; whether thi3 standard 
is reached is another question and requires another 
battle to be fought. But because there is a prospect 
of illegal commerce in whisky under prohibition, is 
entirely aside from the attitude society should take 
toward the business. The whisky business declares 
its dividends out of the lives and happiness of those 
members of society who use its products, and so- 
ciety cannot do otherwise than to outlaw such a 
business. Stamp the business as an outlaw, and then 



governmental machinery will be turned, in principle, 
against and notfor, the business. All other lines of, 
business exist on their merits; the whisky business 
exists only by the most desperate manipulation of 
politics. 

Southern statesmanship is showing the first se- 
rious indication of a desire to solve the negro ques- 
tion, by prohibiting the whisky business. Negroes 
will be as good as the white examples before them. 
For the negro to see the white man, and especially 
the loud-mouthed politician, freely indorsing the sa- 
loon, is an example that his nature most readily fol- 
lows. Hence for the intelligent white population of 
the south to be willing to forego its possible, though 
unproven, ability to use whisky in moderation, in 
order that the weaker negro population may have a 
good example, is an indication of a real desire to 
solve the negro problem. The negro problem con- 
densed, is a moral one. Set a high standard of moral 
conduct in the white race and the negro will follow 
suit; but let the white race indulge every base ap- 
petite itself, and the crime of the south will continue 
to alienate the two races. The presence of the open 
saloon in a land peopled by two wholly different 
races has been a menace that future statesmanship 
will look back upon in amazement that it was toler- 
ated as long as it was. On the other hand, the in- 
crease in industrial efficiency from prohibition will 
in itself sustain the movement. 

Stupendous resources are involved in the whisky 
business, and it is the colossal nature of the business 
that causes many business men to hesitate about in- 
dorsing the proposition to abolish it, It is true that 
the money invested in the facilities of production 

—12— 



and distribution of the commodity will be either lost 
or greatly depressed in value if prohibitory legisla- 
tion is passed. But what will be the loss to society 
if the business is continued? No matter what is 
invested in the business, it, like all other investments, 
depends upon what the the public contributes to it 
through the use of its commodity, to be successful, 
and society contributes more liberally in proportion, 
to this business than any other, except of a similar 
nature. In addition to paying enough to the busi- 
ness to keep up the interest and in the shortest 
time to replace the original capital invested, society 
somewhat cheerfully pays for all the results of an 
excessive use of the commodity. An augmented po- 
lice force takes care of the crime and criminals that 
are stimulated by whisky; asylums and poorhouses 
shelter the unfortunate persons who use it to a logi- 
cal conclusion; but as yet political economy has not 
invested any money in alleviating the misery of per- 
sons dependent upon the persons who use it to ex- 
cess. Juvenile courts at a considerable cost to the 
state have been found beneficial in the handling of 
children who are reared by delinquent parents, and 
through a liberal use of funds, society may devise 
other methods of binding up the frazzled ends' of 
humanity. But why such roundabout methods. 
True statesmanship would dictate that the cause 
needs investigating, and the cause in an alarming 
degree, is whisky. Public policy demands that the 
whisky business should be prohibited, but states- 
men with private ends unfortunately are the di- 
rectors of public policy. But the people will not 
live long in the face of a lie. 



-13- 



Economic Operation 

As a principle by which every business can be 
tested to see whether it is legitimate, this can be 
stated : When the transaction is completed, are both 
parties to it, the buyer and the seller, equally well 
off? Has the buyer received for his money a fair 
value, and has the seller received a just price? 

When a man buys a suit of clothes, he thinks 
that he ha3 made a good exchange for his money; 
and the dealer thinks he has exchanged his suit for 
a fair price. In this transaction, both have increased 
in wealth because each received something that he 
thought more valuable than he gave. The dealer 
would rather have the money than the suit, and the 
buyer would rather have the suit than the money. 
Is there any dispute as to the legitimacy of this 
transaction ? 

Now here is one of the peculiar features of the 
whisky business. 

Men never think of getting into an argument 
6ver the legitimacy of the clothing business, or the 
dry goads business, or the flower pot manufacturing 
business, but there is now and always has been g 
considerable dispute over the . legitimacy of the 
whisky business. And the term, whisky business, 
includes any form of intoxicants. If, as the whisky 
men assert, their business is the life of the city, why 
is a large portion of the population continually dis- 
puting their assertions? Why is not the leigitimacy 
of the whisky business as apparent as that of the 
shoe business, and why do not men as generally agree 
that it is? Jn this division of opinion is found the 



first indictment against the whisky business, for on 
one side are arrayed those disinterested persons who 
note the destructive influence of the whisky business; 
while on the other side are arrayed all those who 
profit directly or indirectly by the business. 

Apply the test land down. In a transaction 
where the buyer receives whisky and the seller re- 
ceives money, are both parties to it equally welloff? 
Has the buyer received a fair value, and has the seller 
received a just price? To answer this question re- 
quires that another principle of business be stated. 

What constitutes a fair value ? It is something 
which, when it has been used, leaves the consumer 
better off than before it was used. The man who 
bought the suit of clothes is better off financially 
after its purchase, than before, because he received 
something he needed more than what he gave. The 
dealer is better off because he received something 
more valuable than he gave. Is that true of the 
transaction where the buyer receives whisky and the 
dealer receives money? 

Whisky men will leap to their feet and shout 
that if the man wants whisky more than he does his 
money, then it has been a legitimate transaction. 
But an unbiased consideration of the transaction Jii 
tire light of the last principle laid down, will show 
that it is not a legitimate transaction. 

It matters not whether a person thinks ..that 
whisky is a fair value for his money., Looking at ^ 
the transaction from an industrial point of view he 
has not received a fair value because when he has 
used it he is not left better off than before using it, 
which is the test of the value of any commodity. 
Society looking calmly at a man Exchanging money 



for whisky, condemns the transaction; for, while 
ordinarily our desire for a thing determines what we 
will give for it, and what it is worth to us, in the 
case of the whisky transaction, society knows that 
the man himself is not making the exchange with 
the judgment he uses in other transactions. He is 
buying an article to satisfy an awakened principle 
of evil. His sense of value has become deranged, 
eJse he would not exchange his real wealth for a com- 
modity that leaves him worse off after its use than 
before. Scales that weigh incorrectly are not a ben- 
efit to industry. Shall it be said that a transaction 
in which a person exchanges real wealth for a com- 
odity whose every effect is to tear him down and 
make him a less effective worker, is desirable in our 
industrial system? Such is not true of the clothing 
or dry goods transactions. Obviously we have in 
our industrial life, two kinds of business; one in 
which the transactions leave both parties to them 
better off ; and another kind in which only one-half 
the parties, the sellers, in the transactions, come out 
of them better off. 

BUSINESS PARTLY LEGITIMATE. 

In that partial legitimacy of the whisky busi- 
ness is found the only semblance of truth that keeps 
the business industrially alive, and causes men norm- 
ally sincere, to agree with the whisky men. Unde- 
niably one party to the whisky transaction comes out 
of it better off, and the industrial world is benefited 
by his prosperity ; but the other party comes out of 
it worse off : and society is hurt far greater by his 
adversity. Whenever a business transaction is made 
that, leaves only one. party to it better off, it is not 

-..16;-. 



legitimate. One man for some reason has not re- 
ceived a just equivalent for his money. 

Gambling for that reason is condemned by so- 
ciety, because it is a transaction in which wealth is 
transferred from one person to another without one 
of them receiving anything in return. Wealth is not 
produced in such transactions because one party is 
living, not by creating wealth and exchanging it 
for wealth in another form, but by securing from the 
other party, wealth for which he gives nothing. The 
gambler and all persons who live by catering to the 
evil in humanity., are industrial parasites. 

It hurts the industrial world every time one of its 
members gets into transactions, out of which he 
comes a poorer man, as indisputably he does in a 
whisky transaction. Imagine yourself in a saloon, 
i wo men are engaged in a transaction. One places 
money, representing real wealth, on the counter; the 
other places whisky, representing nothing but the 
quality to satisfy a passion, on the counter. The 
two commodities are exchanged and the transaction 
is complete. The saloonkeeper has something to 
show for the transaction, but the buyer, after gulp- 
ing- down the whisky, is poorer by as much as it cost 
him, and has nothing in its place. The pleasure he 
received from the drink is not wealth. Pleasure is 
not a fair value to receive in exchange for wealth 
unless it leaves the recipient better off after taking 
it, than before. 

The theater, confections . and other forms of re- 
creation would all be destructive of wealth as arti- 
cles of commerce if they did not leave a tangible 
benefit. Whisky does not. The theater broadens 
the intellectuality and makes a more efficient worker, 

—17— 



Confections likewise mildly stimulate the senses and 
so lighten the burdens of labor. But whisky, being 
a poisonous narcotic in liquid form, has the effect of 
stimulating the user above the normal, which is un- 
desirable, for man is the best producer when he is 
normal. Or it may stimulate a person whose condi- 
tion is below normal, to a point that resembles the 
normal, in which case, his strength being false, so- 
ciety bears the expense in railroad wrecks or in 
other catastrophes superinduced by the stimulant. 
But the deteriorating effect on the physique that fol- 
lows the steady use of whisky is too well known to 
need elaboration and the industrial world should 
iook with disapproval on the consumption of any- 
thing that will make its workers less able to bear 
their share of labor. 

MODERATION NEVER DEMONSTRATED. 

Moderation in the use of whisky has never been 
demonstrated in all the ages the narcotic has been 
used. In fact, observation over a wide area and for 
any number of years will show that where whisky 
is labelled as anything else than a poison, there will 
be a certain per cent of the population that will use 
it to a disastrous excess. It is inevitable and inherent 
to the nature of the article and to the nature of 
mankind. Industrially, whisky should be labelled 
as a poison and allowed to be dispensed only as such, 
similarly to cocaine, opium and other narcotics in 
solid or liquid form, because its use as now officially 
permitted, inevitably results in turning out on so- 
ciety, industrial workers physically weakened and 
hence less able to perform their part of labor. The 
final results of using the commodity are complete 



incapacitation for service, and society has another 
non-producing member to support, as well as to pay 
for all the trouble of controlling the crime and 
misery that directly follow in the wake of whisky. 
There is but one conclusion to draw. Whenever the 
individual understands that he cannot use the com- 
modity without using it to excess, absolute prohibi- 
tion is the only remedy. A city, when it has been 
demonstrated tl*it to license whisky will result in 
a disastrous per cent of its population using it to 
excess, cannot do otherwise than to withdraw its 
official recognition from the business of marketing 
this commodity Society cannot afford to tolerate 
any business that annually turns out, from the use 
of its product, so many thousands of half-effective 
workers in mills, factories and stores; occupants of 
jails and poorhouses ; and members of miserable fam- 
ilies. 

LOSSES FEOM THE BUSINESS. 

If in one transaction, the buyer loses the wealth 
he gave in exchange for whisky, from getting a worse 
than useless commodity, it will only be necessary to 
multiply that loss by the number of such transac- 
tions made in the city every day, to find out how 
much wealth is destroyed by the whisky business. 
Multiply that amount by the number of days the 
saloons operate, and the amount of wealth destroyed 
each year in the city, will be seen. 

Industrially, it would be better for the city to 
throw annually $500,000 in gold into the river, than 
to spend the same amount in the saloons. For by 
such action, the city would only be poorer to that 
extent, while if it is spent in the saloons, in addition 



to being that much poorer, the citizens, individually 
and collectively, who spent it will be worse off in 
body, in mind and in morals. 

Admitting* in whisky transactions, that only the 
sellers come out wealthier, whisky men will say that 
at their worst such transactions only transfer wealth 
from one person to another, and that the same 
amount of wealh will be in existence afterward as 
before. Instead of the consumer having the wealth, 
the producer has it. This, however, is not so and 
ior this reason. 

LABOR. 

When labor spends its time producing a worth- 
less article, that labor has been wasted. Labor con- 
sumes wealth while it is at work, and this consump- 
tion of wealth in the process of labor is justifiable 
only because the result will leave the community 
wealthier after than before the product was turned 
out. Logically then, if labor has consumed wealth 
only to turn out a worthless commodity, its time has 
been wasted and society pays the costs. Every time 
labor turns out a commodity that leaves the con- 
sumer worse off after its use, than before, its time 
has been wasted and the wealth consumed by labor 
in producing that commodity, has been wasted. Ac- 
cording to the law of use, whisky is a product of 
labor that leaves the consumer worse off after its 
use, than before. When labor produces whisky, it 
consumes as much time and wealth as if it were pro- 
cueing shoes, but instead of producing a fair value 
to exchange in commerce, it produces a worthless 
cue. Fireworks are worthless in themselves but are 
legitimate products of labor because in their use, 
i ten are given tangible recreative benefit. 

-20- 



All the labor engaged in producing intoxicants 
is a dead waste, from the labor that grows the raw 
material to the men in the offices who direct the 
business. When all the productive and distributive 
processes of the whisky business are complete, the 
finished product is offered to society for sale, and 
the price society pays for the commodity, pays for 
all the labor employed in producing that commodity. 
But in exchange for this real wealth represented by 
money, society gets in that transaction, a commodity 
whose every effect is to tear it down and make Itf 
members less efficient workers. Society is poorei 
each day by as much money as is invested in the 
whisky business. 

LIMITED PROHIBITION. 

Elaborate safeguards are placed by society 
around the retail distribution of whisky, in an effort 
xo ameliorate the bad effects of the business. Saloon- 
keepers are bonded for good behavior, regulations 
in the management of his business that are not pre- 
scribed for any other business except poisons, are 
enforced; and the governmental attitude of society 
toward the business indicates that society does con- 
sider this business to be different in nature from 
other lines of business. But these safeguards have 
never sufficed to accomplish what they were expected 
to accomplish. Police forces must be 60 per cent 
greater in communities with saloons than in pro- 
hibition cities, This extra force employed to handle 
the crime and misery following the whisky business, 
must be charged against the revenue derived from 
the business. Added to this, the cost of enlarged 
asylums, penitentiaries, jails, poor houses and rt- 

—21— 



form institutions of every kind, the revenue from the 
business, which is used as so conspicuous an argu- 
ment to defend it, is not sufficient to pay for the 
governmental machinery created to handle it. In- 
dustrially the licensed whisky business is a losing 
proposition to the community because society in the 
end pays for the cost of the evil results of the busi- 
ness 

CIRCULATION AND WHISKY. 

Circulation of money is one of the mainstay 
arguments of whisky men. To their short-sighted 
vision it seems that money spent for whisky is 
money that otherwise would be hoarded. Money 
spent right is better than money saved. But to spend 
money right, the spender must receive a fair value, 
and this he does not in buying whisky. Instead of 
making money circulate, the whisky business is one 
of the greatest forces at work in society today to- 
ward the concentration of money in the hands of a 
few members of society. 

When you exchange money for shoes, money 
circulates because both yourself and the dealer have 
something to show from the transaction. You have 
not lost your money. You have merely exchanged 
it for wealth in another form because you received 
a fair value. When you spend money for whisky, 
cr in gambling, or in any kind of dissipation, you 
receive nothing of real value in return, while the 
saloonkeeper or other party receives real wealth. 
So that the sale of whisky is a transaction that trans- 
fers wealth from one person to another, 
without one of them receiving anything 
in return. The only way wealth can be 

-22- 



concentrated is for one member of society 
to get something for which he gave nothing. Every 
one of the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in 
the whisky business each year, in the city, go into 
the pockets of the men who sell and produce it, and 
what have the men who bought it, on hand to show 
at the end of the year? Nothing? No. They have 
weakened bodies, weakened brains, and wrecked 
morals. Has industry any right to complain against 
a business in which the buyers give real wealth for 
such values? For the same reason, the drug habit 
is destructive of wealth; immoral practices are like- 
wise destructive of wealth and gambling is no less 
destructive of wealth and morals, but leave the 
physique, fairly intact, if these other evils are not 
attendant. 

BUSINESS RESULTS. 

Retail merchants could not advocate an industrial 
step that would result in as much new money being 
spent among them, as would follow the abolition of 
the saloons ; for there would be no material decrease 
in population and the vast sums wasted on whisky 
would be spent otherwise. 

SOME BUSINESS OPINIONS. 

Business men of high standing express various 
opinions on the industrial effect of the whisky busi- 
ness, especially bankers, and their opinions are in- 
fluential. Some of these business men are sincerely 
convinced that the whisky business is industrially 
beneficial, while others, if their positions are an- 
alyzed, will be found to receive some benefit from 
the business, directly or indirectly. Bankers are 
most typical and their attitude is worth analyzing. 

-23- 



Savings banks, in advertising for depositors, 
try to impress on the public the importance of sober 
living to get ahead financially. They argue that 
every form of dissipation destroys wealth and they 
have no use for the spendthrift. But go to a regular 
bank that has saloonkeepers as depositors, and you 
probably will find the banker tolerant of the whisky 
business. This inconsistency of bankers is easily 
understood in the light of the arguments previously 
made. It has been acknowledged that one party in 
the whisky transaction, the seller, becomes wealthier, 
while the buyer grows poorer. The bank having 
the seller — that is the saloonkeeper — as a depositor, 
has a prosperous customer and naturally looks with 
displeasure on all efforts made that will result in 
its losing that customer. The bank having the buyer 
as a customer sees the money that he should save, 
being wasted on whisky and concludes that the busi- 
ness is industrially bad. This is not a fight between 
the two banks for the same money. The savings 
bank does not object to its customer spending his 
money on commodities that are fair values, but real- 
izing that whisky is a commodity that reacts on the 
purchaser making him less efficient, the savings bank 
condemns the business. The regular bank would de- 
rive just as much benefit from the accounts of 
gamblers as the saloon accounts. It is plain enough 
that when a gambler gets money, the other party has 
received nothing in return, yet if the other party 
receives whisky in return for his money, it has been 
worse than a gambling transaction because the use 
of the commodity he received will be infinitely worse 
than the loss of the money to the gambler. 



-24- 



PROHIBITION AND LABOR. 

Labor, whisky men argue, is harder to get in a 
dry than in a wet town. For that reason they con- 
clude that higher wages must be paid in a dry town 
than in a wet town. They argue that liberal, living 
conditions (and their construction on the word lib- 
erty is no higher than licentiousness) are advant- 
ageous to the town because men of wide manners 
of living can dwell together. In prohibition towns, 
the manner of living is prescribed to the extent 
that a man cannot buy whisky from a seller with a 
municipal license, and so, they say, some of the pop- 
ulation will go to more liberal towns. Examination 
of the movements of population in dry towns will 
not bear out these assertions. There is a notable 
improvement in industrial conditions in a dry town 
because of the absence of workers made inefficient 
through the use of whisky. The scarcity of a large 
percent of brawling, pauperized persons in the pop- 
ulation, under dry conditions, is a distinct social 
gain. Those workers who must live dissipated lives 
will be replaced by w r orkers who can do normal and 
effective work, and if this should be gained at a 
slightly higher cost, when the costs of the conse- 
quences of the whisky business are weighed, the ad- 
vantage is overwhelmingly in favor of prohibition. 
Industrially or socially a community is never hurt 
by the migration of those persons who will not live 
in a dry town. 



-m* 



The Beast 



In one of the southeastern provinces of Russia, 
a town nestled among the foothills in comparative 
prosperity. The inhabitants generally were indus- 
trious and their industry had made them wealthy 
enough to send some of their sons and daughters to 
the great city for higher educational facilities. So- 
cial life was well defined, consequently, in the usual 
way. 

But a strange solemnity overhung this town at 
certain intervals in the year, when an awful visitation 
which destroyed property and maimed and killed 
many of the inhabitants, took place. This calamitous 
visit of evil had been regular, farther back than the 
memory of the white bearded old men who had 
lived to escape its blighting and destructive opera- 
tion. 

In the somber forests that surrounded the town, 
there dwelt a ferocious and horrible beast that once 
in every year, visited the town, and wherever he 
brought his direful presence, fearful physical suffer- 
ing and often death, followed, while at every step 
he destroyed the wealth of the citizens. 

It was one of the peculiar features of this situ- 
ation, that the majority of the citizens looked with 
toleration on this visitation, as more" or less neces- 
sary, while those citizens who openly endorsed it, 
s^id that the commercial life of the town was ben- 
efited by it almost to the point of being dependent 
on the annual visits, for the town's prosperity. 

Years and years ago, this beast had made a com- 
pact with the original settlers of the town, that per- 



mitted the beast to make an annual visit with the 
privilege of mingling with the inhabitants. In re- 
turn the beast was to pay in to the town treasury a 
certain per cent of the wealth he collected in his 
visits. It was this consideration that caused many of 
the citizens to tolerate the indisputably evil results 
of the beast's visits. 

From the first there had been protests against 
the agreement, from citizens who did not believe the 
town was commercially benefited by the agreement, 
or from citizens who had had sons maimed or killed 
Sometimes wives who had lost husbands from the 
beast's operations, or whose children were affected, 
protested, but the town officials always before had 
said these protests were made by persons who did not 
have the town's business welfare at heart. 

The operation of the beast was in this way: 
Prom two large nostrils vaporous gases escaped and 
whoever inhaled these gases had exhilirating sen- 
sations and finally deep and delightful sleep. Al- 
ways afterward, however, the effects were most de- 
pressing physically, but to those who once inhaled 
the gases, an appetite was formed and frequently a 
habit was created. Sometimes the inhalers broke 
the apetite for the gases but every year hundreds 
either died from it or were killed or maimed in 
brawls with others who were inhalers. There were 
laws against inhaling to excess and consequently 
many families had sons in the prisons. Some citi- 
zens boasted that they could inhale the dangerous 
gases in moderation and that they were not injured 
thereby, but these were limited exceptions. Young 
men were among the largest inhalers of the exhilirat- 
ing gases a$d it was considered among them as a 



sign of manliness to acquire the habit. 

To those citizens who held that to inhale the 
gases was immoral, and who therefore refrained 
from so doing, the beast was most repugnant. Their 
protests had never been sufficient to affect the 
beast's privilege of making the visits. The right to 
inhale the gases was charged for by the beast at a 
rate that enabled it to retire each year from the 
town with great wealth, but the revenue that he 
turned out of this, into the town treasury, blinded 
the leaders of the people to the disastrous results of 
the agreement. With these officials, as with the in- 
halers, the beast was on most intimate terms, though 
to those persons who dared to object to his visits, 
he showed relentless enmity. His influence fre- 
quently was sufficient to enable the beast to injure 
such persons. 

Broken-hearted at the fast approaching ruin of 
her son, from inhaling the gasses, a mother appeared 
before the town officials and implored them to stop 
the beast's visits. They told her firmly that her son 
should have sufficient control of himself not to inhale 
intemperately and that it would ruin the town com- 
mercially to lose the revenue the beast paid into the 
treasury, or to lose the stimulation his visits had on 
the circulation of money. 

Swooning with anguish the woman asked as she 
turned sorrowfully away, "When will men learn 
that there is something more valuable than money; 
the heart-ache caused one mother by this business is 
enough to condemn it forever-." 

Interested as they were, in the town's welfare, 
the officials nevertheless were touched by this spec- 
tacle of sorrow, but for the good -of the town, they 



v/ould not agree to advocate the cessation of the 
beast's visits. 

But gradually a stern feeling that this thing was 
destructive to the town commercially, and degrading 
to its citizens physically and morally, was growing 
up in the town. Citizens with this view banded 
together for the sake of strength and began a policy 
if agitating against the contract with the beast. u We 
believe that this agreement between the town and 
the beast is robbing us annually of all the wealth 
paid to it by the victims of its visits; but even if this 
is not true, we will not tolerate it longer, if to do so, 
means the piling up of so much misery in our 
homes." With this declaration, they began their 
campaign. 

Long and nearly hopeless years were passed be- 
fore they could notice that the public was changing 
its attitude toward the beast, but the idea grew. 
And while those citizens who were benefited by the 
beast's visits strugled hard to maintain the agree- 
ment, it finally was annulled. 

Now in that Russian village the beast has not 
visited for several years and the absence of stupified 
citizens from its streets, of fatherless homes, and of 
the greater amount of crime, causes the citizens to 
look back upon the years the beast was tolerated, 
and shudder to think how blind they had been. The 
c^ty commercially is better off because the citizens 
do not waste their money inhaling the destructive 
gases but spend it on things of real worth. 



— 29-T- 



OCT 21 1 c 



ii'm^^congress 



027 Iff 719 5 



